As part of my months-long effort to compile misleading claims Wall Street Journal editorial page, let me briefly note their latest bogus statistic:

The startling bottom line on Bush administration profligacy is this: At $22,000 per household, federal spending is at an inflation-adjusted post-World War II high and set to go still higher soon as the Baby Boomers start drawing Medicare and Social Security.

But what the Journal doesn’t tell you is that current spending levels relative to GDP are historically low. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that federal spending will be approximately 20 percent of GDP over the next five years including costs for Katrina relief and reconstruction. “[T]his level of spending will be lower, as a share of the economy,” they write, “than federal spending in every year from 1975 through 1996.”

The irony is that the Journal likes to downplay deficit projections by making historical comparisons of the deficit as a percentage of GDP (a valid metric). But when it comes to federal spending, levels of GDP go out the window. Surprise, surprise.